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A bipartisan group of senators this week wrote to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging them to add $350 million for science programs to the upcoming fiscal 2008 war supplemental spending bill.

The letter was spearheaded by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and ranking member Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who also is the ranking member on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds the Energy Department's Office of Science.

"We recognize the pressure you face to minimize the size of supplemental appropriations bills in the face of competing budgetary priorities," the senators wrote. "However, we strongly believe that it is necessary to provide critically needed research funding immediately to avoid unintended and permanent damage to our critical scientific infrastructure and our standing in the world as the leader in science."

Also signing the letter were Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander and GOP Sen. Bob Corker, both of Tennessee, which is home to the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer of New York, Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., also signed it.

Their letter specifically requests that $250 million be allocated to the Energy Department's Office of Science to keep up the United States' commitment to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, retain Fermi National Laboratory in Durbin's home state of Illinois as "the nation's premier high physics facility" and help other Energy Department laboratories around the country continue their research.

The remaining $100 million would be for the National Science Foundation. Association of American Universities President Robert Berdahl praised the senators' efforts.

"We appreciate the efforts of these senators to begin to correct a critical mistake made last year by Congress and the president. The failure of Congress and the president to provide new investments in science in fiscal 2008 that were both promised and needed is causing real harm to our nation's scientific enterprise and therefore to the nation's long-term economic competitiveness," he said in a statement.

COMMENTS

• Kennedy proposed money to clean up his fuel dump earlier this week. Initally they thought it was booze but realized if it was he'd be swimming in the water dan ketter Posted March 21, 2008 1:29 PM
• It seems to me that it is a necessary evil to have ear marks for developing scientific projects and our sciences in general. I truly believe that when ear marks are used to fund a project that the projects should be for programs that benefit our nation as a whole or for the benefit of humanity worldwide, not to fund and benefit a few in a particular area or location.It should not be granted just because someone sits on a particular committee in Washington and therefore has a tremendous amountof "clout" among his or her peers. It should be based on "the merits of science for the benefit of all" either nationally or for humanity. It is my belief that these projects such as "a bridge to no where, USA" is the type of earmarks that give the program a bad name and people only hear about the bad things that earmarks do, and not the good that comes out of programs that do merit funding. I sincerely hope that this type of program continues to enable and encourage scientific developement; if this type of program ends, shame on us, our government to allow us to sink further toward a third world country where we are no longer competitive nor credibile as a country of great scientific minds, developements and accomplishments. Are we going to export that too to China, India and other countries who traditionally prey upon our scientific developments? This concerns me greatly that this too will go as our manufacturing jobs have gone and our technical jobs which are out sourced to others; are we going to become so "bogged" down that we can no longer produce great scientists since we cannot produce/manufacture a reasonable safe product for our children? This is my real concern if this type of program is no longer an option to fund scientific projects then where will we be and what kind of legacy do we leave grandchildren? Other major countries do have governmental spending for such programs, why not us? Brenda Ray-Nayfeh Posted March 21, 2008 8:51 AM